Full Details

A not so universal suffrage: How Europe’s political elites have become educational elites

Author:

Bovens, Mark Wille, Anchrit

Series/Date:

EuroppBlog
24.10.17

Source Origin:

Professional/public/political organisation

Source Type:

Blog/Journal/Series

Notes:

Education levels are often cited as a key factor in explaining differences in opinion between voters, but as Mark Bovens and Anchrit Wille illustrate, many national parliaments have highly unrepresentative numbers of MPs with university degrees. They highlight that the number of MPs with degrees has increased substantially in western European countries over recent decades, and that the absence of low and medium educated citizens in parliaments and other political venues constitutes a serious democratic deficit.

This article draws on the authors’ book, Diploma Democracy: The Rise of Political Meritocracy which was published by Oxford University Press in 2017.